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Beginning in August 2017 and well into the fall, a series of pro-Trump fake news web sites took aim at the reputation of Trump administration critic Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by regurgitating an old, fabricated account of what caused a catastrophic fire aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in 1967. The naval disaster killed 134 sailors and injured 161—one of those survivors was McCain himself, who sustained minor injuries. The web sites, several of which also defamed McCain as having been a ‘rat’ or ‘stoolie’ during his five-and-a-half years of captivity as a POW in North Vietnam, laid out details claiming McCain was personally responsible for the deadly conflagration on the deck of the Forrestal. For example, Liberty Today (LibertyInfo.net) reported on 18 October 2017: Copied word-for-word from a blog post originally published in 2008, the text is an unholy mixture of inaccuracies and outright lies. For starters, the Associated Press' FOIA that the post references actually revealed a slew of the military's top awards and commendations. The post also asserts that 27 died in the fire (there were 134 fatalities, in point of fact) and that the incident occurred on 19 July 1967 (it actually took place on 29 July). It further asserts that eyewitnesses and investigators evinced the belief that the explosion and fire were caused by McCain showing off by wet-starting his A-4 Skyhawk aircraft. (In pilot lingo, wet-starting a jet engine refers to flooding its combustion chamber with extra fuel before ignition, which usually results in a loud bang and/or plume of flame on start-up.) There are no eyewitness accounts in the official record supporting that version of events, however. According to the U.S. Navy's exhaustive investigation into the incident, the findings of which are summarized below in an excerpt from an article by Commander Hank Stewart, USN (Ret.), a naval engineer, the fire was actually caused by the accidental firing of an Mk-32 Zuni rocket as a result of an electrical power surge during preparations for a strike against a target in North Vietnam: A harrowing, 18-minute documentary produced by the U.S. Navy includes actual footage of the fire: U.S. Navy investigators found that the carrier personnel were inadequately trained or equipped to cope with such an emergency at the time, oversights which have since been corrected with improved vessel design, damage control procedures, and equipment. As McCain remembered the incident in his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers, the accidentally-launched Zuni missile hit his own plane, tearing it open, igniting two hundred gallons of fuel that spilled onto the deck, and knocking two of my bombs to the deck, though the official Navy account said that it hit a nearby Skyhawk piloted by Lt. Cdr. Fred White instead (some sources speculate that it may have struck both planes simultaneously). In any case, as the explosions and fire spread, McCain helped dispose of several bombs over the side of the vessel before receiving medical treatment, he wrote in his book. He praised what he described as the heroics of his fellow crewmen, whom he believed saved the Forrestal from sinking. John McCain retired from the U.S. Navy with the rank of captain in 1981. Among his many commendations were a Distinguished Flying Cross noting his exceptional courage, superb airmanship, and total devotion to duty during a bombing raid over Hanoi in 1967, and a Legion of Merit with Combat V award for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States while interned as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam from October 1967 to March 1973. On 28 July 2017, McCain tweeted a video about the Forrestal fire to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the catastrophe:
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